A telephone may be beneficial or bothersome depending upon the timing, origin and purpose of an incoming telephone call. While many persons have recognized the advantage of being able to shut-out telemarketing and similar trash calls and to only receive calls from selected persons, every attempt to filter the incoming calls which may reach a subscriber's telephone set has met with some level of here-to-fore unresolved problem or user inconvenience as a side-effect. As a result, while telephone filtering systems have been known before, they have met with application resistance due to these and other shortcomings.
Unwanted and trash telephone calls extend a false sense of priority. Since their arrival expresses equal importance with any other call.
As a consequential result, they are ordinarily allowed to ring-through to the subscriber's telephone set.
The called party's privacy is obtrusively violated in a manner which is unacceptable in nearly any other form of communications. This violation occurs because an ordinary telephone set is virtually blind to the nature of incoming telephone calls. In current residential and small business settings, unwanted trash calls bear an equal priority with more important or urgent calls.
INCOMING CALL LEVELS
My invention addresses at least four distinct levels of incoming calls which require different filtering considerations.
URGENT CALLS are those calls from family members and business associates which may require immediate attention or have a quasi-emergency aspect associated with them and which you may ordinarily want to be able to immediately accept.
EXPECTED CALLS are those calls from family members and business associates which, while essentially routine in character, are of the sort which you will accept at nearly any time.
ROUTINE CALLS are those calls from various persons which may be handled at your convenience and therefore may preferably be diverted to an answering machine or voice mailbox, at least during designated times.
TRASH CALLS include a broad range of junk calls and in particular telemarketing calls which further include attempts by parties unknown to you to reach you, usually for reasons which serve their benefit more than yours. These calls are at best preferably diverted to an automated answering system.
USE OF A PIN NUMBER AS A FILTER
One well known device used for eliminating unwanted calls is a Tele-Screen.TM. Model TS300 phone protector which requires the caller to enter a previously agreed upon "personal code", i.e, a "PIN" (personal identification number) . This device actually answers the incoming call with a message (similar to) "Thank you for calling. Please enter the four-digit pass code". Four principal drawbacks for the use of this device are:
1) USE OF A PIN--The caller must recall and use the correct four-digit PIN identification code. This can be bothersome for potential callers from whom a subscriber wants to receive calls, since they may have simply forgotten or otherwise misplaced the subscriber-issued identification code numbers.
2) UNNECESSARY TOLL--The device answers the incoming call thereby breaking the circuit and causing the calling party to assume a toll-charge if from out-of-area even when the subscriber is not available to accept the call.
3) CALL IS LOST--No provision for diverting unanswered calls or calls originating from a person not having or recalling the identification code is provided, where such calls may be recorded on an answering machine or sent to a different telephone.
4) UNNECESSARY RINGS--One ring is delivered before the device activates and blocks subsequent rings.
ANSWERING MACHINE AS A CALL FILTER
Answering machines are also well known which respond to incoming calls with a subscriber's pre-recorded message. When the caller replies to leave a message, the subscriber can "decide" whether to pick-up the line or not, usually upon hearing the caller's voice. As with the Tele-Screen.TM. device, the use of an answering machine invariably results in a toll-charge for the calling party in event the subscriber is not available to answer.
COMPUTER VOICE-MAIL AS A FILTER
Computer voice-mail systems may also be utilized which answer and record incoming messages. Software for such a system is represented by SuperVoice 2.2.TM. Software (.COPYRGT.Pacific Image Communications, Inc.) which affords the voice-mail response and records incoming calls in accord with one or more "mail-box" code selections.
CALLER CONVENIENCE
When a subscriber's telephone is locked-out by a call diverter, such as the prior art knows, important incoming calls from relatives and friends may be refused, hence lost. It is inconvenient and simply expecting too much to have all of a subscriber's friends always remember a unique access code number. It can also be confusing to technically-challenged persons as to how to use the access code number even if they have it before them. In particular, under the pressure of an emergency, a recalling of an access code number can escape even a person with a usually infallible memory.
Since the principal function for call filtering by most subscribers is to eliminate solicitous sales calls and the like, especially when they may arrive at inconvenient times.
FLAGGING A CALL
I have found that a far simpler yet highly effective call filtering method can be utilized.
A forthcoming call may be flagged by a predecessory call having a abreviated ring cadence. This flagging may occur with no toll charge against either party, if the called party is not home or does not choose to answer. No identification numbers are needed. All that is required is to merely remember to repeatedly call the same number twice while hanging up briefly between the two calls. By limiting the first call attempt to only one or two "rings" and hanging up, the first incoming call sets-up my filtering device to receive a second call which the knowing caller will immediately place. When the second immediately successive call is received, it is permitted to ring-through upon condition that the first call is of a proper format (of a few rings followed by a hang-up). If a first call occurs inadvertently (such as by someone having dialed a wrong number), my device times-out after a finite interval preset in the range of 30 to 180 seconds, more or less. If the first call's ring cadence persists for more than a few ring cycles the first call is furthermore recognized as an improbable caller (e.g., a trash call or an unwanted call) and simply diverted to an answering machine or left unanswered.
CALLER-ID FILTER APPROACH
Thanks to a caller identification (caller-ID) provision which is readily available to most telephone system customers at a nominal monthly charge, it is now possible to sort-out viable calls from nuisance calls with even better reliability. One way to accomplish caller-ID filtering is through calling an intended party twice in succession and presenting the same caller-ID number. My invention may process and prioritize the calls and make a decision to route the second call directly to the subscriber.
TOLL-CALL CONSERVATION
Toll calls cost the caller money when the subscriber's telephone is answered by an answering machine or by the mentioned Tele-Screen.TM. device. A non-local calling party must pay a toll. This can be costly to relatives and friends and with the advent of my invention, such tolls are unnecessary. The reason is that prior-art answering devices such as answering machines, voice-mail computers and so forth all implement an off-hook pickup by the by the subscriber. I now teach how this off-hook line interruption and toll charge may be overcome, wherein the incoming call may be filtered with no cost to the caller and without cheating the telephone service provider.
ELDERLY AND INFIRM USERS
Telephone calls made to elderly persons are often of a nuisance nature. It is difficult if not downright dangerous for an elderly person to have to locate and answer a ringing telephone, only to find out it is merely someone trying to sell him or her something which is unneeded.
Relatives such as children, friends and others may have reason to reach the elderly person but without sacrificing the telephone to all sorts of annoying trash calls originating from telemarketeers and the like. This selective filtering of desirable calls from undesirable calls is now practicable through use of my device.
Telemarketing calls are well known to frequently be intended to prey upon gullible elderly persons. While such practice is not universal, it is widespread enough that the typical elderly person needs some buffering from such compromising calls. As is also well known, many elderly persons are particularly vulnerable to these types of predatory telemarketing calls in that they harbor a desire to be more self-sufficient in spite of their age or physical condition. As a result predatorial telemarketing calls from confidence men which make dubious and false promises tend to defraud and victimize elderly persons out of huge sums of money every year.
For mere example, on page 16 of the AARP BULLETIN of October 1997 Malcolm Sparrow of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government says: "Don't ever respond to telemarketers or people who call unannounced at your door offering some special deal from Medicare. Send them away and call the Police."
As a result of my invention's provision for trash call, crank call and nuisance call filtering, the elderly or infirm person using my invention is now better protected and far less likely to be hailed by a ringing telephone when the call is unrelated to his usual circle of friends and relatives. More pointedly, the trash telemarketing calls can be efficiently diverted to an answering machine or, better yet, simply left unanswered.
COMPARISON WITH RELATED ART
About the only "art" known to me at this time which vaguely related to my invention is providing a limited level of call screening through utilization of an answering machine or a selective response device such as the Tele-Screen.TM. device, or by viewing the incoming call number on a "caller identification" device prior to answering. While each of these earlier devices may provide some limited extent of call screening, they fail to enable the usual telephone set to merely ring when the ringing call is most likely someone to whom you do wish to speak.